


where honeysuckle grows

by boccardo_syllogism



Category: Miss Fisher's Murder Mysteries
Genre: Angst, Established Relationship, F/M, Fluff, Insomnia, Whump
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-19
Updated: 2018-10-19
Packaged: 2019-08-04 09:16:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,285
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16344035
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/boccardo_syllogism/pseuds/boccardo_syllogism
Summary: For the MFMM Whumptober 2018 prompt "insomnia."An evening with Jack doesn't end quite the way Phryne expects.





	where honeysuckle grows

When Phryne wakes in the wee hours of the morning to find the other side of the bed empty and cool to the touch, her first, mostly-asleep reaction is to sprawl luxuriously into the unexpected space. She snuggles her face further into the pillow, listening to the creaking of the house around her, though something seems ...off, and she can’t quite place what.

The moment it occurs to her, she jolts to full wakefulness.

This isn’t Wardlow.

Jack had invited her to spend the night at his little house in Richmond so they could have an evening entirely to themselves. It had been lovely - he’d made something of a picnic dinner, and she’d insisted on feeding it to him with her fingers as much as possible until they were both so wound up that food was the last thing on their minds. Phryne doesn’t come here as often as she’d like, knowing as she does how much Jack values having a refuge from the rest of the world, but every time he asks her to stay makes his home more precious in her eyes. It is no small thing to earn such unwavering trust necessary to be welcomed into a man like Jack Robinson’s home as though she belongs there.

Which makes it all the more worrisome that he seems to have abandoned her in his bed.

Phryne slips from the sheets and pulls on one of his dressing gowns before padding down the stairs. Jack isn’t in the kitchen, nor his study, and a quick peek into his sitting room reveals only their clothes dangling haphazardly where they’d been thrown earlier this evening. She’s preparing herself to get truly alarmed when the back door rattles slightly in the wind; it’s ajar. Beyond it, she can see the edges of Jack’s garden.

Of course.

She finds him sitting rigid on a low bench that’s bathed in the light of the full moon, staring blankly into a rather handsome trellis overflowing with honeysuckle. He doesn’t move when she cautiously sits down next to him, unsure whether he wants her close or not, but after a moment his arm comes up to curl around her shoulders and she leans into his side with a quiet sigh.

Jack has made no secret of the fact that his sleep is often interrupted, whether by nightmares, memories, or niggling details of current investigations. Phryne has been around him long enough to know that it’s not the latter, not tonight - she knows what he looks like when he’s wrestling with a case.

Tonight he just looks… lost.

"Do you want to talk?" she asks gently. Sometimes he does, hesitant stories of people he'd known in the war, or who they'd been before it. Other times it's cases long cold that he never managed to solve that still weigh on his mind. More commonly, he gently urges her back to bed, telling her that at least one of them should get some sleep.

For a moment, it seems as if Jack hasn’t heard the question. Phryne opens her mouth to repeat it when he takes her hand, so small and delicate in his, and presses a soft kiss to the palm.

_No._

Well, she can work with that. It’s no hardship to sit here with him on a quiet summer night, so early that it seems like nothing in the world is awake but them and the gentle breeze that plays through her hair. She rests her cheek on his shoulder, basking in the warm smell of his skin.

“A garden full of flowers, and you want to smell me?” he says, muffled behind where her hand is still pressed to his lips.

“A Jack by any other name would smell as sweet,” she teases, lacing her fingers with his and pulling their joined hands to rest in his lap. “Tell me about these flowers, then.”

He turns his head to raise an eyebrow at her. “Is this your way of telling me I should expect your assistance the next time I’m tending to my garden?”

“Hardly.” They both know very well she prefers shamelessly ogling him while he works to actually joining in. “But they seem to have captured your fancy tonight.”

“I suppose they have.” He exhales, long and low. “Rosie suggested I grow them, not long after I came home.”

Whatever she’d been expecting - the Latin name, perhaps, or a story of learning to tend them in his mother’s garden - it hadn’t been that. Phryne steals a quick glance at his face, worried that she’d inadvertently uncovered old wounds, but his face is calm, though a little wistful. “I didn’t know Rosie was involved in your garden.”

“She wasn’t,” Jack says. “She used to say it was a matter of principle, having already been named for a plant.” The fondness in his voice makes Phryne smile. “Did I ever tell you I was the only one of her suitors who didn’t bring her roses? She always joked I half won her over just from that.”

“What did you give her?”

“My mother’s prized pink orchids. She never forgave me til Rosie and I got married, and even then only grudgingly.”

Phryne snuggles further into his side. Listening to Jack talk about the early days of his marriage is ...odd, really - she knows he considers it one of the happiest times of his life, and it’s clear that he and Rosie still love each other, albeit differently. She isn’t jealous of his past, or scared that he wants something similar from her. It’s just… to hear Jack tell it, he’d been a very different man back then. Phryne finds herself wishing she could have met the Jack that Rosie had known, the charming flirt in a constable’s uniform whose easy smile had broken more than a few hearts.

Then again, that kind of insouciant young man would never have been what she needed. It’s his steady understanding that cemented her love for him; theirs is such an instinctive shared acknowledgement of past grief that turning to him to celebrate happiness seems only natural in turn. Phryne’s curious about Rosie’s Jack, yes - but she likes _her_ Jack more.

He doesn’t seem inclined to reminisce further, though, fingers absently tracing the embroidery on her dressing gown and focus back on the trellis. Phryne closes her eyes, perfectly content to listen to his heartbeat in lieu of further conversation. There’s a slight chill to the air, and Jack is warm - there are worse places to be than tucked under his arm while he communes with the honeysuckle.

She doesn’t exactly mean to fall asleep, but Jack’s voice rumbling through his chest some indeterminate time later wakes her from a light doze.

“When I came home…”

The pause is so laden with remembered pain that Phryne’s heart aches.

“Neither of us knew what to do, really. I didn’t know how to… how to exist _with_ someone anymore, but I kept trying to pretend everything was fine, and Rosie was so desperate to help that it only made things worse.”

His fingers clench so tightly on her dressing gown that there’s a genuine chance it could tear. Phryne curls an arm around his waist in a loose embrace - there’s nothing to say, but she can hold him close and hope the contact gives him some comfort, however meager.

“I’d had a small garden, before,” he continues after a moment. “I came home one day and found Rosie with a trellis and some cuttings she’d gotten from Mum, and she told me she missed having flowers out here. So I started to grow things again. It gave me something to do where I didn’t have to think.”

They watch the blossoms rustle gently in silence.

“Honeysuckle means happiness,” Jack says quietly. “The real thing seemed impossible, but at least I could manage the flowers.”

After a moment, Phryne slips from underneath his arm and pads across the garden on cold feet. Up close, the honeysuckle blossoms give off a warm, heady fragrance so thick she can almost taste it, though it’s not unappealing. It’s the work of a moment to find what she’s looking for, and then she makes her way back to the bench where Jack is watching her.

As gently as she knows how, Phryne tucks the honeysuckle blossom behind his ear.

“It suits you, I think,” she murmurs.

Jack stares up at her. Moonlight softens the familiar lines of his face, glinting off the tears welling in his eyes; the rumpled pajamas and tousled hair complete the image of a man undone. “Phryne,” he breathes, and his voice is so ragged that it brings a lump to her throat.

In that quiet moment, she thinks perhaps this might be the most intimate she has ever been with someone else.

Later, after she’s successfully coaxed him back inside and they’ve slept til an hour properly befitting one of Jack’s rare days off, Phryne steals one of his shirts, carelessly doing up the buttons as she follows her nose to the kitchen. Jack’s appreciative glance from where he’s frying eggs for a late breakfast has her wondering exactly how cross he would be if she dragged him straight back to bed.

“Good morning,” she murmurs, wrapping her arms around his waist.

“Don’t think I don’t know what you’re doing,” Jack says, but he’s not trying particularly hard to hide his smile. “It’s not going to work. I’m starving and we’re going to eat at the table like civilized folk.”

“You _do_ make a point of spoiling my fun.”

“Always, Miss Fisher. Fetch the plates, will you?”

Pressing a kiss to the nape of his neck, she obliges, and in fairly short order their feet are tangled together below the table as they eat in companionable quiet. Jack’s no Mr. B, but Phryne has discovered that he’s more than capable of simple but delicious food over the course of several delightful invitations to dinner at his house - and more than a few breakfasts besides. It’s much more fun to steal his toast when he’s relaxed and feeling daring enough to pull her into his lap and kiss her into penitence. Feigned penitence, anyway.

Speaking of which… there’s half a slice of toast left on his plate. She’s not particularly hungry anymore, but Jack’s been far too composed thus far considering she’s not wearing a stitch of clothing besides a half-buttoned dress shirt that smells like his cologne. Really, it’s ridiculous that he can sit there, perfectly calm and reading the _Argus_ like it’s a quiet morning in his office. The latest footy scores can’t possibly more interesting than what they could be doing upstairs.

Across the table, the newspaper twitches.

Phryne considers her options. The plate is out of his line of sight, and if it was the toast she was actually hungry for, she suspects she likely _could_ swipe it with Jack none the wiser. But it would be child’s play to get up, pretending to stretch her legs, and accidentally end up within reach. She sidles up next to him, pretending to read an article over his shoulder, and reaches out slowly... 

Jack’s hand seizes her wrist inches from the plate. “I believe that’s theft, Miss Fisher.”

His eyes are still ostensibly on the paper, but his thumb caresses the sensitive skin on the inside of her wrist, and Phryne’s heart begins to pound at the clear sign that he isn’t falling for her act in the slightest. “Is it?” she asks, leaning forward just enough to treat him to a rather spectacular view of her breasts should he glance her way, which he does a moment later. “It’s breakfast for two, Jack. Surely you appreciate not wanting anything to go to waste.”

“And yet I never steal _your_ toast.”

“And that’s very noble of you, darling, but I can’t help taking advantage of a situation when it presents itself.”

Blue eyes flick up to hers, dark and promising all sorts of wicked things. “What sort of situation might that be?”

“Really, Jack,” she laughs, tracing the bristly line of his jaw with her free hand. “You know I never miss an opportunity to seek pleasure.”

Jack hums thoughtfully, folding away the newspaper and pulling her closer until she settles on his lap. “Far be it from me to deny you,” he says, a tiny smirk playing around the edges of his mouth.

Phryne abandons all pretense of going after the toast and draws him into a series of lazy kisses, luxuriating in the corded muscle of his bare shoulders and the warmth of the sun spilling in through the window. Jack tastes like eggs, and tea, and a little bit of morning breath that’s easily redeemed by the noise he makes when her hand cards into the loose curls of his hair. Jack’s fingers fumble with the buttons on her (well, his) shirt, but when they break apart to catch their breath, it’s still no more undone than it had been when she entered the kitchen. Phryne looks down, trying to work out what on earth he’d been doing, since apparently he hadn’t been putting those lovely hands to good use.

Her breath catches at the sight of a slightly wilted honeysuckle blossom tucked neatly into one of the spare buttonholes.

“It suits you, too,” Jack says, hands settling uncertainly at her waist.

Phryne has loved Jack Robinson for longer than she cares to admit, even to herself. That morning, barely dressed and breathless in his kitchen, is the first time she says the words out loud, and the look on Jack’s face when she does makes every second of waiting worth it.

**Author's Note:**

> A bit more fluffy than is perhaps appropriate for whumptober, but I couldn't resist the idea of Jack offering the honeysuckle back. *shrug emoji*
> 
> This is my very first MFMM fic! I'm both excited and mildly terrified - I don't have any friends who know the show, but I do have about 30 WIPs of various states of completion lying around and a _lot_ of emotions about this ship. You can find me on tumblr at [preux-chevalier](preux-chevalier.tumblr.com) \- let me know what you think!


End file.
